It's not General Tso's... it's better!

Brent's OBSESSED with Asian food.  His all time favorite: hibachi.  Ask him where he wants to go for dinner, and you can be sure he'll answer with one of the following: Fusion Bowl, Tsunami or Miyos. (Even if you're not familiar with those restaurants... the names alone should give them away)  So I always keep Asian spices on hand, and he's actually learned that he can mix a few of them together, put it on chicken, and it turns out pretty tasty.  Mixing them in a bowl and dunking 1-inch cubes of chicken breast in it is the most cooking I've ever seen the man done.  But he's proud of himself (and I'm proud of him too).  :)
To create Asian flavor you need:
1. rice vinegar
2. sesame oil
3. minced ginger (I'm telling you... buy the tube!  Mincing ginger is awful)
4. garlic (jar!)
5. some sort of chili sauce... he likes the red stuff with the green cap: sriracha

Having these on hand made the following meal REALLY cheap for me, but if you have to go out and buy all of these things... this may get a little pricey.  Another trick to making a meal a little cheaper is to buy chicken thighs instead of the breasts.  Definitely stock up on chicken breasts if they go on sale, but if you don't have any breasts on hand, then go with chicken thighs.  They're a quarter of the cost.

Tonight's meal: Asian glazed chicken thighs.  This recipe is based on one I found in Cooking Light magazine.  I changed just a few things based in trial and error:

Ingredients:
1. 1/3 cup rice vinegar                      pantry or  $2.50
2. 1 Tbsp sesame oil                         pantry or  $3.75
3. 3 Tbsp honey                              pantry or  $1.99
4. 1 Tbsp chili sauce                         pantry or  $4.15
5. 2 Tbsp. chopped garlic                 pantry or $2.49
6. 1 chopped jalapeno                      $0.15
7. 8 skinless chicken thighs               $5.15

1. Mix ingredients 1-6 in a bowl with a whisk.  Put the marinade in a big freezer bag.  Dump the chicken thighs in the bag (I always cut off the excess fat first).  Marinade for 1-3 hours.
2. Heat oven to 425.  Spray a cookie sheet with at least 1/2 inch sides with cooking spray.  Spread out the thighs and cook for 10 minutes.  Reserve marinade!
3. Remove thighs.  Baste with marinade.
4. Bake another 10 minutes. Remove thighs.  Baste with marinade.  Throw out the rest of the marinade.
5. Bake a final 10 minutes.  (so that's 30 mins of total bake time, with 2 breaks to baste)
SO good!!! -makes 4 servings (2 thighs each)

I had all of the Asian flavors in my pantry already, so the cost of this meal for me was $1.33/serving!!!!  However, if you need to buy ALL of those spices, you're looking at a pricey $5.05/serving.  However, then you have all of them on hand for your next Asian meal!